Ball Game
by Bookman230
Summary: Sometimes, Minori wondered if she was good at love. Minori considers going up to bat once more in the great ball game of love.


A/N:Edited by Professor-Piggy

Sometimes, Minori wondered if she was good at love. Yeah yeah, first she'd fallen in love with her best friend, and then her best friend's crush too, and then those two'd ended up in love with each other, so Minori's first batting at the plate of love had been an out! But a good out, where even though the game had been super important, losing was okay 'cause it meant you got to see the other team be really happy they won. 'Cause even if it wasn't your win, it went to somebody who might have deserved it more. So despite the disappointment and the sadness and the loss… she just couldn't stop smiling. Couldn't stop being happy, somehow.

Plus, it always got easier when you got to the next game! And now she'd made it and oh, the ball this time is coveted. Pitchers can't keep their hands off it, batters can't keep their bats under control around it, outfielders spend entire games trying to catch it, and now Minori's up to bat, and she has to swing or someone else might swoop in and take the ball first! But that was where it got confusing. People just tuning in for the last inning might think they understand why she wants to hit that-the ball, that is- because the ball is super great! Only it's not super great, at least not the way they think it is! And the people who'd seen more of the game, but not the whole thing, might not understand because she and the ball have a _history_. She'd beat the ball up, the ball'd beaten her up! They'd screamed at each other! She'd said she hated the ball, which isn't true now but kinda was then, and the ball'd screamed that it hated her too, which was probably true back then but which she really, _really_ hoped wasn't true now. Even the people who'd been there since the start, seen everything except what went on in the locker room, might not get it for all sorts of reasons! Which went back to her point!

Sometimes, Minori wasn't sure if she was good at love. With ghosts, maybe she's always been more of a reality TV ghost hunter than one of the Ghostbusters. Chasing after them but never finding them, or just leaving and letting them go instead of sucking them up if she ever did. Or maybe UFOs were better? With UFOs, she's more like the Mythbusters than the Men in Black. She's never seen a real UFO. And if she does see one, she always disproves it, and lets it go free, instead of giving it a chance and maybe capturing it, if it wanted to be caught! But the Mythbusters are scientists. They look at the evidence, and this time the evidence says there might be a real UFO. And it might be a real UFO that it's okay for her to catch. The right UFO for her. A UFO from a whole other planet, different from Planet Minorin in tiny big ways, but so much like her own in big tiny ways. Or… maybe she _was_ like the Mythbusters. Maybe now she's a conspiracy theorist, 'cause to some people this had to look crazy.

Because those big tiny ways – or maybe they're just big big ways, either way – maybe they're not _good_ ways. Maybe it's like a mirror, but maybe Minori's the one cracked. Amin is so much like her. The masks and the pretending, the empathy and stupidity, the kindness and cowardice. They both run when they should fight, both fight when they should run. Ami's like her in all the ways that hurt, sometimes, and just like looking in a mirror, seeing her reflection – seeing every last one of her own zits and cuts and scars, had made Minori hate herself. Hate Ami. But now… it's like every imperfection rests so perfectly on Ami. Like the mirror reflects something better. Like it reflects the sunlight, and where it should burn it heals and makes her body shine and makes her heart sing like a morning bird.

People treat the sun like it's just what makes flowers grow and things live and everything shine, but its not. Sometimes the healing is the burning. When everyone treated her like Minorin the lucky batter destined to hit a home run, or as Kushieda, who had to be proven wrong just in time for the romantic climax, when both sides thought they needed to put her back together…it'd been Ami who just saw Minori. Ami'd forced her to act, even if she'd done it with harsh words and a slap to the face. And it'd worked. She'd shown her it was up to no one but her to put herself back together. To build herself into whoever she wanted to be. And that it was up to her, with only her own strength, to reach out and pull her own happiness to her. Ami'd burned and Ami'd healed until there was just the core to be found again, and then the new skin'd been free to grow.

But the sun is still the sun, and the sun's warm. She remembers Ami sitting there with her, at her own house, after she'd cried for… who knew how long? She'd tripped in life. Ami hadn't had to. But she sat. She stayed. She offered her shoulder without a word in case Minori needed it, but believed that Minori was strong enough to cry it out alone. And maybe she was, but she hadn't. She'd had Amin there. Maybe she didn't need her, but like the sun she was always there.

And the sun shines. Ami's smile? Her_ real _smile, the one that came out more and more after she got close to Taiga and Ryouji and maybe even Minori herself, a little bit? It's beautiful. It glows, but you never forget that it can burn – a good burn, like a nice beach day. And it has this little quirk of bemusement, like she can't believe that somehow she wound up here. Sometimes Minori can't believe she did either. She never knew she was that lucky.

Plus she's such a jerk. But in a fun way! Taiga's too nice to _really_ tease back, but Amin does, and she's good! It's hard for Minori not to laugh at herself after one of Amin's zingers. She's her snowball fight rival, her anime heckler ("I see why it's called Sailor _Moon_. Is _that_ why you watch it?"), her best friend but _more_, and maybe they're both cracked, and maybe being cracked isn't so bad. The reflection's there, but each and every crack is pure Ami – unique, sometimes good and sometimes bad but always _perfect_.

Maybe it's crazy. But who cares? Ghosts and UFOs are crazy. Life is crazy. They're crazy. But a part of her own happiness is right in front of her. No more hiding or waiting on the benches. It's time to play ball.

"...Amin?"

Step up to plate…

"I have something to tell you…"

_Swing!_

…

Home run.


End file.
